So retro!

Nothing makes me happier than tracing my culinary DNA back through time and sharing the recipes and the food with others. As you may, or may not know, I am a retro gastronaut through and through. Some of you may have seen and possibly read my “School Dinners” cook book.

It appears I am not alone. Delicious Magazine in their September issue are running an article on the 70’s, Decade of guilty pleasures. I got the chance to contribute too. Now that made me feel very grown up! Looking on the Good Food website there is also an article on why this trend is happening. I have my theories. I think it is a combination of needing to be far more frugal. Many of us achieve this by using a small amount of good quality meat, possibly a cheaper cut and learning how to make something delicious from it. Brisket, slow roasted lamb shoulder, melting pork belly and of course the ubiquitous lamb shank. Equally we are being tempted by programmes such as the Great British Bake Off. They encourage us to revive our food memories. They haven’t yet invented Smellivision but I closed my eyes yesterday and I swear I coul smell both the eight plaited leaf baking in those ovens, as well as catching a faint whiff of fear as the knives were wielded by Paul and Mary. Short of importing Paul Hollywood into my kitchen…….. pause to imagine that! ……the only way to really experience the tastes we see on screen are to make the dishes for ourselves. This means for many of us going back to basics. Getting out our tried and trusted recipes and then free forming our own dishes when we become more familiar with the building blocks of good home cooking.

Very spookily Radio Oxford called me this morning to discuss exactly what I have written about here.

So my question to you is, what retro dishes have you had a hankering for recently. Have you added to an Arctic roll? Have you boiled a Baba? Would you consider tackling a tart? Me I have a list as long as my arm, now where is my Kenwood and the Tupperware bowl?

I’ll post a link to my radio interview later when it is up on iPlayer.